


Sometimes things aren't what they seem (just watch me take this flicker to flame)

by MYuzuki



Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [35]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Noctis Lucis Caelum, Time Travel Fix-It, what do I tag this as someone please help XD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26632141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYuzuki/pseuds/MYuzuki
Summary: Noctis really isn't sure how he feels about Ardyn, and deals with it by avoiding the older man as much as possible.
Relationships: Ardyn Izunia & Noctis Lucis Caelum, Noctis Lucis Caelum & Nyx Ulric, Noctis Lucis Caelum & Regis Lucis Caelum
Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [35]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897525
Comments: 14
Kudos: 109





	Sometimes things aren't what they seem (just watch me take this flicker to flame)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so we're detouring slightly from Nyx's POV because inspiration struck and briefly nudged me in another direction (see the end notes for an explanation, lol, as well as a general ramble about my current lot in life in regards to video games :P), but we'll be getting back to the Glaive rescue mission soon, I promise. ;D

**Sometimes things aren't what they seem (just watch me take this flicker to flame)**

* * *

Noctis really isn't sure how he feels about Ardyn, and deals with it by avoiding the older man as much as possible.

It's not that he _dislikes_ the man, precisely, it's just that his feelings about Ardyn and the Lucii and everything tangentially related to them are _so_ complicated that he thinks he could spend the rest of his natural life sorting through those emotions and still come up short.

(That he's never been very good with emotions certainly doesn't help.)

The fact that Ardyn is one of his ancient ancestors is strange and bizarre to contemplate, but even stranger is the fact that until recently the man had basically been a living embodiment of darkness, his soul riddled with Starscourge and his mind quite literally plagued by daemons.

Luna has done her best to try to explain to him how such a thing might have happened, how a healer in those ancient days might have tried to cure the Scourge from people by absorbing it into his own body, not understanding how dangerous such an action was to their own health, but even with that explanation Noctis can't help but feel that he's missing pieces of the puzzle.

Part of that confusion is probably because of all the destiny mumbo jumbo his father had talked to him about three days before (Six, has it only been three days? It feels like forever ago already), because he's still trying to add together the facts of his life and tally them up in a way that adds up to Was Expected to Die a Martyr and keeps running into a mental wall that brings him up short.

Because that just…doesn't compute, in so many ways. And sure, part of it is probably that he's twenty years old and in the prime of his life and is more than willing to admit that he doesn't want to die, not now or ten years from now or ten _decades_ from now.

But part of it is just that the entire thing is just so _stupid_ that he can't believe generations of his ancestors haven't called bullshit on the whole thing before now.

Instead, it took Nyx Ulric to do it, one of his father's loyal Glaives, and Noctis hasn't had a chance to thank the commander personally yet but dammit, he's going to.

Because Nyx was probably doing it more for the whole 'save the world' thing than the 'spare Noctis from sacrificing himself' thing, but a thank you is in order all the same because Nyx's plan _did_ save Noctis's life and he's not going to forget that.

But according to his father, Nyx has just been called away on urgent Kingsglaive business (Regis hadn't deigned to share _what_ exactly that business entailed, because he's still doing that stupid parent thing where he's trying to protect Noctis by keeping him in the dark about important things despite the fact that Noctis is twenty and not two and if he's old enough to be pointlessly sacrificed just because some ancient gods say so then he's old enough to actually be informed about shit that's happening in his own damn kingdom, thank you very much) so he's not going to get a chance to speak to the commander for at least another few days.

(Probably for the best, really, since despite the fact that he definitely wants to talk to Nyx, Noctis has no idea what to actually _say_. He's never really been very good with words, with expressing how he feels. And what does someone say, really, after being indirectly saved by another person's actions, particularly when that person is apparently distantly related to you through a great-aunt you've never even heard of?)

Honestly, there's just so much that Noctis needs to ask Nyx, but apparently it's going to have to wait.

And in the meantime…there's Ardyn.

Ardyn, who spends a lot of his free time lurking around the Citadel, making everyone he comes into contact with acutely uncomfortable.

Ardyn, who was a member of House Caelum once upon a time, who -if everything Noctis's father had said was to be believed- was originally going to be the founding king of the Lucian kingdom if his younger brother hadn't turned on him out of jealousy and too much faith in the unfathomable motivations of the gods.

Ardyn, who looks at Noctis like he's seeing someone else when he sees his face, bitterness and fury and a cutting sort of grief flashing over his face before he buries it beneath the fake joviality that makes Noctis's hair stand on end.

And that's not even touching on the fact that apparently the gods had decided that they were destined to be mortal enemies who would eventually kill each other.

So no, Noctis doesn't know how he feels about Ardyn, and avoids him as much as possible because even just being in the same room is awkward and tense for both of them and he's thinks that neither of them is entirely sure if they're supposed to be allies or enemies tied together by destiny or casual acquaintances who happen to be related.

It's probably not a tenable course of action long-term, but it's working well enough for now so he's going to stick with it until he has time to sort out the tangled mess of feelings inside his own head.

(Not that anyone else seems to _realize_ that he's struggling so much internally; his years of practicing his polite mask of indifference are seemingly paying off because virtually no one is able to see through his poker face to the turmoil underneath. Only Luna and his father seems to realize that something is amiss, and they're taking great care not to the poke at the problem, apparently content to let him come to terms with things at his own pace.

It's thoughtful and considerate of them, and all things considered it's probably the right course of action even though it feels a bit like ignoring the wild chocobo in the room.)

So he carefully and deliberately sets aside all thoughts of Ardyn and goes to seek out his friends instead; he hasn't had a chance to spend more than a few minutes at a time with them the past couple days, as wrapped up as he's been with the whole Purge-the-Scourge-from-Ardyn thing and its aftermath. And maybe under normal circumstances that wouldn't be bothering him as much as it is, but these _aren't_ normal circumstances and it _is_ bothering him.

Because he misses his friends; they're like the lodestone in his life, the mountain he can set his back against while the world rages around him, their support and loyalty never wavering. Because they can see through his mask to the person underneath, and they'll know immediately that he's not as okay as he's pretending to be.

(And because when he's with them, everything actually feels like it _is_ okay. Like he's just going through another rough patch and as long as the four of them are together there's nothing they can't get through.)

So he goes to find Ignis, who's been buried in PR paperwork and interview requests ever since Lunafreya's arrival in Insomnia (because everyone and their dog suddenly seems to want to talk to Noctis about his feelings for the princess and then plaster that conversation all over every news network across the city and Ignis has the dubious honor of telling them all to go pound sand on Noctis's behalf) since Ignis will know exactly where Gladio and Prompto are at any given moment and will not hesitate in the slightest when Noct tells him that he has to get out of the Citadel for the rest of the day or he's going to lose his mind.

All four of them are slipping out a side entrance barely twenty minutes later, and a weight lifts off of Noctis's chest as they leave the suffocating walls of the Citadel behind.

(They spend the rest of the day at his apartment in the city, playing games and watching stupid TV shows, and Noctis breathes easy for the first time in three days.)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I wasn't actually planning to write anything from Noct's POV yet, but then I remembered that Ardyn's brother Somnus (the same brother who betrayed him because Bahamut said It's Destiny despite the two of them supposedly being very close during their younger years) is canonically stated be a dead ringer for our boy Noct! And then I was over on tvtropes and I saw a mention of how in the Dawn of the Future novel Noctis actually does wonder if Ardyn hates him so much because he looks like Somnus and then I Had Feelings About It, so here we are. And I know all I do in this drabble is make a couple references to it, but I promise the subject is one that will be revisited more thoroughly in the future (especially since the Old King statue/embodiment that Nyx was fighting alongside at the end of the Kingsglaive movie was -you guessed it!- ALSO Somnus the Mystic! Like, there is so much to talk about when it comes to Somnus, omg).
> 
> Also, totally unrelated to anything story-related, but I FINALLY got Final Fantasy X & X-2 HD Remastered for the PS3 and it's soooo amazing, I'm having so much fun. It's so nostalgic and the graphics are amazing and I'm having a blast. I'm also wasting time that I should probably spend studying cellular respiration or writing that autobiographical essay I have due in a couple weeks, but life is stressful and I deserve to play games right? ;D
> 
> (On a similarly unrelated note, I'd also love to be playing FFXV right now, especially since I've tripped headfirst into being obsessed with it (again, lol), but I don't have a PS4 right now. Also, believe it or not, I have not yet actually played the game in its entirety?! Which is a travesty, truly. I mean, yeah, I'm familiar with parts of it because my buddy knows I love everything FF and he invited me over to play some of it with him when he got it and I know all the plot points and everything (and we were both suitably outraged over getting all the way through the game and then getting THAT ending, but still. As soon as my tax return finally comes through the first thing I'm doing is getting a PS4 and FFXV Royal Edition AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME.)
> 
> (...Actually, on second thought, it might be better that I don't have a PS4 right now, because then I really would get nothing else done, lol. ;P)
> 
> (...Okay, rambling over now, sorry. ^_^;)


End file.
